


She is no Galatea

by chaletian



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Gwen knows how to work. She knows how to fight for what's important. She knows how to listen and how to care. But there are some things she doesn't know.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	She is no Galatea

Gwen knows how to work. She knows how to fight for what's important. She knows how to listen and how to care. But there are some things she doesn't know.

oOo

  
"You want me to _what_?"

Gaius looks at her impatiently. "Learn to dance, Gwen. Merlin can help."

Merlin just looks alarmed. "Uh, I can't dance." He is ignored.

"Gaius, I don't have time for something like that! Half the castle servants have the ague, and I've got so much work..."

Gaius raises an eyebrow. "You can spare an hour."

Gwen smiles kindly. "Gaius, it's very nice of you to think of me... dancing, but it's not exactly something I need to know how to do." She picks up her basket again.

Gaius takes it off her. "Gwen, you need to learn how to dance."

She's confused now. "Um, no, I..."

"You need to learn how to dance, and how to curtsey, and how to speak to people of rank. We need to start you learning heraldry." He frowns. "We should get Geoffrey involved. He's a fool, but he knows his business, and you'll have to learn who everyone important is."

This is too much. "Who's _important_? Gaius, just because someone's rich and titled doesn't make them more important than the people who live and work here!"

Gaius' expression softens, and he pats her hand. "We know that. But if you are to be queen one day, you have to fit the role. Prince Arthur can be as romantic as he likes, but he cannot take a maid to wife." If his words are brutal, his face is not.

Gwen blushes. "I'm not- he's not- I mean, that's absurd! Merlin, tell him!"

Merlin shuffles his feet. "Oh, I'm not saying anything."

"You need to learn," says Gaius again, and Gwen looks away. This is it, she thinks, a little confused. It's been sweet and romantic with her and Arthur, but it hasn't been _real_. Dreams and possibilities, the ideal of a better Camelot, ruled over by prince and maid in their imaginations. But this? This is real. This is making a plan. This is building her - their - future, and she's not sure if she can do it. She's not sure that she's ready.

oOo

  
Gaius beats time with a staff. "One, two, three, four; one, two-- no, Merlin, the other hand. The _other_ other hand. Oh, good _grief_!"

"I _said_ I couldn't dance!" says Merlin, aggrieved, and Gwen giggles, then looks up as a shadow appears in the doorway.

"You are without a doubt the worst dancer I've ever seen," says Arthur, stripping off his gloves and tossing them on the apparatus-strewn worktable. "Which, let's face it, isn't remotely surprising." Merlin sneers, and Arthur sneers back, and Gwen holds back another giggle, her hands behind her back.

But Arthur holds out one of his. "Guinevere?" he asks, voice suddenly serious.

"Sire," she replies, curtseying, placing her hand in his, and they're dancing, slowly, steadily, tracing patterns on the floor that dip and flow as they never did with Merlin.

"I meant to see you before Gaius," Arthur says after a while. "He said you needed this. I didn't want you to think..." He hesitates. "I don't want you to think you aren't good enough."

"Gaius is right," says Gwen, and if she holds his hand tighter, nobody but them knows it.

"All this- it's not important. It's not what really matters."

Gwen moves closer; the dance ends, and she looks up at him, and sees their future so clearly. "I'll fight for Camelot," she says. "With a sword, with an argument, and if it works, by showing everyone I'm as grand a lady as Camelot could want."

Arthur frames her face with his hands, and it's as if Gaius and Merlin and the workshop have never existed. "Camelot could never ask for more," he says.


End file.
